TITLE:
Design and Performance of PV Dust Cleaning System in Medina Region
AUTHORS:
Khaled S. Al Qdah, Saleh A. Abdulqadir, Nawaf Y. Al Harbi, Abdullah Z. Soqyyah, Kamal J. Isa, Mohmmed Y. Alharbi, Nasser M. Binsaad
KEYWORDS:
Dust, Performance, Photovoltaic, Solar Radiation, Climatic Conditions
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Power and Energy Engineering,
Vol.7 No.11,
November
12,
2019
ABSTRACT: This work aims to design a cleaning system for the solar PV panels under
Medina climatic conditions. This system powered by the PV module itself.
Full cleaning system has been designed and tested utilizing a wiper and water
jet to remove the accumulated dust and other dirt from solar panels surface.
The proposed cleaning system can be worked for long time efficiently. All the
strength system components were examined and found to be stable and reliable.
Also, the performance of cleaning system evaluated and comparison between
the clean and dusty module performance has been conducted. The system
performance has been evaluated for both clean and dusty panel at variable
inputs of solar radiation. At input power of 805 W/m2, the efficiency
found to be 13.78% for the cleaning panel and 9% for dusty panel, whereas at
the input power of 460 W/m2, the estimated efficiency was 12.6% and 7.3%
for clean and dusty panel respectively. Significant reduction in the efficiency
has been reported as 35% and 42% for both cases. Therefore, the present
work can be considering as a promising and efficient system to solve the
problem of poor performance of the photovoltaic cells in areas that experience
dusty environment and external pollutants. In addition, it is safe clean
and economic system.